'Vox Pop'

Copyright: BBC

The tapes have been arranged in three groups: actuality, edited material, and programmes. The actuality tapes have been catalogued following the order of the numbers on the original boxes; this series is followed by other actuality tapes that did not fit into this sequence. Copies of the programmes have been grouped together by programme. There are several versions of some programmes.

See MS 4000/2/121 for related papers.

A series of eight programmes broadcast in 1967 documenting the 'pop song' phenomenon. First titled 'Ready, Steady, Stop' and later renamed 'Vox Pop', these programmes, by Geoffrey Reeves and Stuart Hall, included interviews with many critics: Richard Hoggart, Ewan MacColl, Kingsley Amis, Adrian Mitchell, Ray Gosling, Eric Hobsbawm, Clive Barker, George Melly, David Craig and others, and a cross-section of teenagers. The sound recordings surviving in the archive are mainly of interviews with critics; there are very few interviews with teenagers.

Memos relating to the production of the programmes describe the series as 'programmes on the pop song phenomenon...in which critics and performers, sociologists, promoters, and laymen listen to the product, discuss the charts, and dare to discriminate'. The first six programmes are summarised in the production files as follows: 1) 'Teen Scene', about the pre-war background; 2) 'It's My Life', about the post-war progress from skiffle to beat; 3) 'Muscular Music', a response to the musical qualities; 4) 'Common Market', some views on the mechanics of trend spending and how a pop song is born; 5) 'Window Dressers', about pop song promotion and the role of Disc Jockeys; 6) 'You Can't Dance to Beethoven, Can You?', a culture vacuum and how it is filled.The final two programmes deal with protest song and the movement from protest song into the psychedelic.

There is also a series of eight tapes labelled 'Beatlemania', which are recordings of American folk songs, probably copied from records. See MS 4000/6/1/53/1/D for a typescript list of performers and instruments featured on these recordings.